In a world with an intellectual history of seven thousand years behind it, where do Pakistanis stand, what are they doing, what do they aspire to be, and what ought they to be doing? This Blog takes Notes of all of that ...

Friday, November 2, 2012

Finished reading: Guide to Stoicism

Last
night (November 2), I finished reading another book on Stoicism. It was first
published in 1908 by Archibald Constable & Co., London. It belongs to the
series, Philosophies Ancient and Modern. Since then it has been reproduced as A
Little Book of Stoicism, and as Guide to Stoicism.

Fortunately,
the original first edition titled as Stoicism, is available at www.archive.org. Its author is St. George
Stock, a scholar not well-known, only that he was born in 1850, and at the end
of his Foreword to the book is written “St. George Stock M.A. Pemb. Coll.
{Pembroke College} Oxford.”

Here is what little information I could find about
him and his work:

“It
is rare to encounter a published author from the relatively recent past for
which almost no biographical information can be found online. I have found such
a person, in the form of a philosophy scholar by the curious and intriguing
name of “St. George William Joseph Stock.” Who gets named “Saint,” or did he
give himself that moniker? When was he born, and when did he die? Where did he
live? Trying to suss out the life of this enigmatic “Saint George” is
maddening.

As
mentioned above, at the end of his Foreword to the book is written “St. George
Stock M.A. Pemb. Coll. Oxford”, today I sent an email to Amanda Ingram, Archivist
at the Pembroke College, requesting St. George Stock’s biographical information,
and just in minutes the following information was provided; it is shared below with
thanks to Amanda Ingram:

“St.
George William Joseph Stock was a scholar at Pembroke College - his
matriculation register entry records that he was the second son of St. George
Henry Stock of Douglas, Isle of Man, a gentleman. He was educated at Victoria
College, Jersey, and matriculated at Pembroke on 26th October
1868, aged 18. He was awarded a King Charles I scholarship 1868-1873 (a closed
award for scholars from the Channel Islands) and obtained a second class B.A.
in litterae humaniores (classics) on 5th Feb 1873 and his
Oxford M.A. in 1875. He became a Lecturer in Greek at Birmingham University and
died in 1922 in Castle Bellingham, co. Louth, Ireland.”

I think
Stock’s book is more authoritative since it is based on primary sources.
Actually, Stock talks of Greeks and Romans as if he is from the same stock. He
claims to be an adherent of Peripatetic school.

This about 100 page little book
is worth-reading.

See
some excerpts from this book:

“If
you strip Stoicism of its paradoxes and its willful misuse of language, what is
left is simply the moral philosophy of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, dashed
with the physics of Heraclitus.” [Foreword]

“Among
the Greeks and Romans of the classical age philosophy occupied the place taken
by religion among ourselves. Their appeal was to reason not to revelation.” [P.
1]

“We
are born into the Eastern, Western, or Anglican communion or some other
denomination, but it was of his own free choice that the serious-minded young
Greek or Roman embraced the tenets of one of the / great sects which divided
the world of philosophy.” [PP. 1-2]

“It
was as difficult to be independent in philosophy as it is with us to be
independent in politics.”

[P.
2]

We
know very well that independents in politics are actually the “Bargainers” in
the game.

“Aristotle,
as Shakespeare knew, thought young men 'unfit to hear moral philosophy.’ And
yet it was a question or rather the question of moral philosophy, the answer to
which decided the young man’s opinions on all other points.” [P. 2]

“Their
{Stoics’} moral philosophy affected the world through Roman law, the great masters
of which were brought up under its influence.” [P. 5]

That’s
the significance of Stoic philosophy!

“If
the Stoics then did not add much to the body of philosophy, they did a great
work in popularising it and bringing it to bear upon life.” [P. 5]

Another
point that shows the importance of Stoicism, and Stock dwells meaningfully on
this theme:

“An
intense practicality was a mark of the later Greek philosophy. This was common
to Stoicism with its rival Epicureanism. Both regarded philosophy as ' the art
of life,' though they differed in their conception of what that art should be.”
[P. 5]

“We
connect the term {‘nature’} with the origin of a thing, they connected it rather
with the end; by the 'natural state' we mean a state of savagery, they meant
the highest civilisation; we mean by a thing's nature what it is or has been,
they meant what it ought to become under the most favourable conditions: not
the sour crab, but the mellow glory of the Hesperides, worthy to be guarded by a
sleepless dragon, was to the Greeks the natural apple.” [PP. 7-8]

This
observation of Stock’s is laden with dangerous implications. It’s no place to
go into the details of the implications, however, I would like to add that this
characteristic of Greek thought is a way of looking forward and recreating what
is already there, i.e. to realize its perfection, whatever it is!

“Following
out this conception the Stoics identified a life in accordance with nature with
a life in accordance with the highest perfection to which man could attain.”
[P. 8]

“The
end of life then being the attainment of happiness through virtue, how did
philosophy stand related to that end? We have seen already that it was regarded
as 'the art of life.' Just as medicine was the art of health, and the art of sailing
navigation, so there needed to be an art of living.” [P. 9]

“It
was said of Chrysippus that his demeanour was always quiet, even if his gait
were unsteady, so that his housekeeper declared that only his legs were drunk.”
[P. 72]

It’s
really amazing to see how the Greek philosophers lived and philosophized! That
was the first ever and the only society which deserves to be called a
philosophical society.

"The
absence of any appeal to rewards and punishments was a natural consequence of
the central tenet of the Stoic morality, that virtue is in itself the most
desirable of all things.” [P. 100]

So
the Stoic morality may be dubbed as a morality of virtue?

“They
{the Stoics} were the first fully to recognise the worth of man as man; they
heralded the reign of peace, for which we are yet waiting; they proclaimed to
the world the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man; they were convinced
of the solidarity of mankind, and laid down that the interest of one must be
subordinated to that of all. The word 'philanthropy,' though not unheard before
their time, was brought into prominence by them as a name for a virtue among
the virtues.” [P. 101]

Such
are the penetrating features of the Stoicism!

“Virtue,
with the earlier Greek philosophers, was aristocratic and exclusive. Stoicism,
like Christianity, threw it open to the meanest of mankind. In the kingdom of
wisdom, as in the kingdom of Christ, there was 'neither barbarian, Scythian,
bond, nor free.' The only true freedom was to serve philosophy, or, which was
the same thing, to serve God; and that could be done in any station in life.
The sole condition of communion with gods and good men was the possession of a
certain frame of mind, which might belong equally to a gentleman, to a
freedman, or to a slave. In place of the arrogant assertion of the natural
nobility of the Greeks, we now hear that a good mind is the true nobility.
Birth is of no importance; all are sprung from the gods.' The door of virtue is
shut to no man: it is open to all, admits all, invites all free men, freedmen, slaves,
kings, and exiles. Its election is not of family or fortune; it is content with
the bare man.' Wherever there was a human being, there Stoicism saw a field for
well-doing.” [PP. 102-103]

Thus,
it is Stoic philosophy that struck a blow to the moral elitism of Aristotle,
and their times. They were thoroughly humanist!

“Cosmopolitanism
is a word which has contracted rather than expanded in meaning with the advance
of time. We mean by it freedom from the shackles of nationality. The Stoics meant
this and more. The city of which they claimed to be citizens was not merely
this round world on which we dwell, but the universe at large with all the mighty
life therein contained. In this city, the greatest of earth's cities, Rome, Ephesus,
or Alexandria, were but houses. To be exiled from one of them was only like
changing your lodgings, and death but a removal from one quarter to another.
The freemen of this city were all rational beings sages on earth and the stars
in heaven. Such an idea was thoroughly in keeping with the soaring genius of
Stoicism.” [PP. 103-104]

It
was at the start of the 20th century (the book was published in
1908) that Stock observed cosmopolitanism, instead of expanding, to be contracting;
the same is true for the present age. Though there runs a parallel cosmopolitan
stream in the form of globalization, but intellectually and morally
Cosmopolitanism is weakening.

“The
philosophy of an age cannot perhaps be inferred from its political conditions
with that certainty which some writers assume; still there are cases in which
the connexion is obvious. On a wide view of the matter we may say that the opening
up of the East by the arms of Alexander was the cause of the shifting of the
philosophic standpoint from Hellenism to cosmopolitanism. If we reflect that
the Cynic and Stoic teachers were mostly foreigners in Greece, we shall find a
very tangible reason for the change of view. Greece had done her work in
educating the world, and the world was beginning to make payment in kind. Those
who had been branded as natural slaves were now giving laws to philosophy. The kingdom
of wisdom was suffering violence at the hands of barbarians.” [P. 105]

Stock
is so incisive and meaning is heartening and at the same time pleasing. He
rejects socio-political explanations as the cause of philosophical evolution,
and in the same vein censures Hellenism and through a historical reading sees a
cosmopolitan spirit developing out of it via those whom Hellenism considered
natural slaves.

Also,
his “The kingdom of wisdom was suffering violence at the hands of barbarians.”
is an indictment of the Greek wisdom!

NOTE:

It
may be asked why I am so much interested in Stoicism. Ji, actually and
particularly I am interested in moral philosophy. My especial focus is
immorality of Pakistani society. I want to understand and explain why Pakistani
society has morally degenerated. Why this society through and through immoral?

And of course how a moral regeneration may be effected!

Here
is the “contents” of the book:

I. Philosophy
Among The Greeks And Romans

II.
Division Of Philosophy

III.
Logic

IV.
Ethic

V. Physic

VI.
Conclusion

Dates
And Authorities

It
is also important to see the ‘Dates and Authorities’ (printed at the end of the book) which gives among other
things an idea of the chronological evolution of the Stoic philosophy.

DATES
AND AUTHORITIES - B.C.

Death
of Socrates - 399

Death
of Plato - 347

ZENO
- 347-275

Studied under Crates, - 325

Studied under Stilpo and Xenocrates, -
325-315

Began teaching - 315

Epicurus
- 341-270

Death
of Aristotle - 322

Death
of Xenocrates - 315

CLEANTHES
- Succeeded Zeno - 275

CHRYSIPPUS
- Died 207

ZENO
OF TARSUS - Succeeded Chrysippus

Decree
of the Senate forbidding the teaching of philosophy at Rome - 161

DIOGENES
OF BABYLON

Embassy
of the philosophers to Rome - 155

ANTIPATER
OF TARSUS

PANJETIUS
- Accompanied Africanus on his mission to the East - 143

His treatise on 'Propriety' was the basis
of Cicero's ' De Officiis.'

The
Scipionic Circle at Rome

This coterie was deeply tinctured with
Stoicism.

Its chief members were The younger
Africanus, the younger Laelius, L. Furius Philus, Manilius,

The Blogger

The blogger cherishes a cosmopolitan spirit; he is a moralist; a rationalist; a philosopher; a political philosopher; he believes in Classical Liberalism, as a Theory of Conduct.
He has substantially contributed to the founding of the first free market think tank of Pakistan, Alternate Solutions Institute.
He is a writer who wrote / published dozens of articles on a variety of issues, and is author of 4 books.
He wrote / published short-stories in Punjabi, a regional language of Pakistan.
He composes poetry both in Urdu and Punjabi, and has already published one collection.